


let me (show you how a kiss should taste)

by Everyone_Every_Ever



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bunkers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 08:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18465460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everyone_Every_Ever/pseuds/Everyone_Every_Ever
Summary: Alex pines.Kyle reflects.Or; sometimes, childhood dreams do come true.





	let me (show you how a kiss should taste)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Gemma (gemmamalo) for checking this over and editing for me! (Sorry, can't figure out how to insert links.)
> 
> Title is from Daisy by Zedd ft. Julia Michaels

Kyle was fed up. Totally and utterly fed up. Fed up with watching Alex pine and pine and pine and hope. Fed up with Michael Guerin in general, because you don’t have someone as wonderful and beautiful and snarky and amazing as Alex Manes and just let him walk away. It was cosmically unfair. 

What did Alex like about Guerin, anyways? History, maybe, but it wasn’t good history, based on the heartbreak evident on Alex’s face whenever Guerin was brought up. And, okay, maybe his own history with Alex wasn’t perfect and painless, but at least he’d changed. He was new. Alex was new. Michael wasn’t. 

How he had behaved ten years ago still broke Kyle’s heart to think back on. He honestly wasn’t sure how Alex had forgiven him for it- Kyle sure as hell knew he hadn’t forgiven himself. They’d been best friends since they were three years old, and he spit on that the second everyone else turned on the poor guy. He’d spent his childhood years playing superheroes with Alex, pretending to fight bad guys and bullies and save kittens from trees. 

He still remembered the tree house summer, lying in the sun and drinking horrible, too-sugary lemonade they had made themselves because Kyle’s parents were at work and Alex’s dad didn’t care enough to stop them from adding a cup of sugar per lemon. He remembered the way Alex had looked at him, how he snorted at every stupid joke Kyle had made. How it had been genuine and how Alex's eyes were so full of what Kyle could now look back on and laugh and call puppy love. He remembered when he went to the car with his dad, then loud, harsh, yelling, and his dad rushing out of the car and ordering him to stay fucking put.

Something broke in Alex that day. He didn’t meet Kyle’s eyes again, not for years, not until he was challenging him, telling him off for being a coward, a bully. He denied being any of that, and it wasn’t until he got home and he was different and Alex was different that everything crashed back down on him and the guilt hit him at last. It hit him when he passed by Alex in the waiting room of the hospital, when Alex jumped at his sudden and unwanted appearance and glared at him until Kyle took the hint, stopped his shocked staring, and went on his own way. 

Months later, he found out from his own ex that, okay, Alex’s ex is an alien. Absolutely spectacular. (Not.) Then he started investigating aliens with Alex. Like they were kids again, still playing superheroes and detectives and still innocent and unbroken and full of love and trust. 

For the past week, Alex had been more distracted. Sad. Like his heart was broken into more little chunks than there were grains of sand in the ocean, and he didn’t have enough fire to melt it into a whole glass heart. Or maybe he was too scared for it to be shattered again. And Kyle had an overwhelming urge to lend him the heat of his own heart and melt Alex’s back into a new shape. A shape that didn’t remember the sledgehammer that was ten years of Michael Guerin’s love. 

He couldn’t force Alex to heal. He couldn’t force him to get over Guerin. But maybe he could offer him a new love; a love that wasn’t going to sleep with his best friend the second the opportunity arose. 

A pointed cough startled Kyle out of his quiet contemplations. In front of him, in the middle of the Project Shepherd bunker, stood Alex, looking askance, eyebrow cocked and an unreadable quirk on his lips. “Hello?”

Kyle swallowed hard, gaze flicking rapidly between Alex’s smile and his incredible, deep, brown eyes. “Hm?” he responded, trying to force his eyes to stay put. He didn’t want to do something to mess this entire relationship up. After all, it’d only been a few months. Alex probably thought Kyle was totally straight. Alex definitely was still in love with Michael Guerin.

“I tried calling your name four times. You alright?” The look on Alex’s face had shifted to one of genuine concern. Kyle felt his heart pulling at the edges, desperate to erase every line of worry, no matter how small, from Alex’s face. There was absolutely no way Kyle couldn’t at least try. 

One half step closer, one half second longer, Kyle’s left hand found a place gripping hard to the shoulder of Alex’s vest. Another half step, another half second, his right rested on the base of his neck. In another movement, he leaned in, breathed, and pressed his lips, with all the tenderness in the world, against Alex’s. 

Alex’s whole body pressed just slightly against Kyle. Not desperately or longingly, but like a man who had spent years at a storm-torn sea was only now learning that land even existed, let alone that he could make a home there. Could rest there. Kyle couldn’t remember ever kissing someone so softly, so carefully. Couldn’t imagine Alex could either. But a soft, easy hope was the best he could offer against the jagged, rough, desperation Alex had felt for years. 

All of a sudden, Alex swore loudly, gripping tight to Kyle and pulling him backwards into a heap on the ground. For a second they laid there, confused, before breaking out into raucous laughter nearly simultaneously. It felt like being kids again. Playing pretend detectives, laying in a lump on the floor and giggling no matter the bruising they both undoubtedly just got, being friends with Alex, loving Alex.

Loving Alex.

And that hit Kyle with all the force of a freight train, that this wasn’t new at all, that this was old. That maybe sticking around for an old love, the oldest love one had, couldn’t possibly be a bad thing. For as much as he knew the feelings behind Alex’s soft eyes gazing up at him, Alex leaning in closer than need be, Alex grabbing his hand for too long when leading him to the strawberry bush a jackrabbit had made its home under, he managed to ascribe meaning to his own actions, and the feelings for his childhood best friend that he had spent years pushing down. 

No, loving Alex Manes wasn’t new. It was right before Kyle could even admit it was okay. And he was more than fine with that.

When their giggling finally subsided and their breathing slowed to a reasonable speed, Kyle rolled off of Alex onto the cool floor and closed his eyes, taking a moment to breathe after the fairly massive choice he'd just made. When he opened them again, Alex was gazing at him, a peaceful look in his eyes and a hopeful smile on his lips. “Can't say I expected that.”

Kyle wasn't sure he honestly expected it either. It wasn't like his life plan was to kiss Alex Manes in a cold, unpleasant, alien murder bunker hidden several feet below ground. But, somehow, it had become his reality, and it was better than anything he could have dreamt up.

“You’re not upset by that, are you?”

A baffled, somewhat offended expression crossed Alex’s face. “I… Why would I be?”

“Most people aren’t exactly thrilled when their high school bully kisses them, no?”

“Most people haven’t dated actual aliens from space either.”

Kyle couldn’t argue with that. Abrasive alien with a criminal record definitely wasn’t tamer than this. “So. Do you maybe want to do that again? Preferably without the falling over part, this time?”

Alex propped himself up on his arms and leaned over, lips hardly brushing Kyle’s before he relaxed again. “Maybe talking for a second would be better? Last time I was in a relationship, we didn’t really talk, and, well, you know how wonderfully that went. Maybe ask each other questions, maybe?”

“Fine. You go first.”

“Why?”

“Why what, Alex?”

“Why’d you do that? You never seemed like you’d be interested before.”

“That is… A lot to ask, yanno?” A guilty expression crossed Alex’s face, and he opened his mouth, likely to apologize, but before he could, Kyle continued. “I guess, I was tired of watching you like that? And it’s not like it was pity, or anything, if that’s what you’re gonna say. I do really care about you. A lot. And I’ve wanted to kiss you for weeks now, but you’ve been pining after Guerin for months, and I didn’t want to get in the way of that, but I just got so sick of it. Of watching you be sad.” He brought his hands up to his face, covering his eyes momentarily and bracing before continuing. 

“Because I think I loved you, or what I would’ve assumed was love if I’d have acknowledged it, when we were kids, and I do now, I think, and I don’t think that’s going away. Because we’ve both changed so much since then, we fit together differently. But I think we still fit.” Kyle took a deep, shaky breath. “And if what you’re saying is, ‘Kyle Valenti, I thought you were straight,’ then, not so much, clearly. I messed around with a couple guys when I was in Idaho. Had a couple boyfriends. So.” 

“Well. Holy shit, then.” Alex appeared more than a bit surprised, but far from displeased. “Your turn to ask now.” 

“Do you really forgive me enough to try this out? And are you over Guerin enough?”

Alex sat up, eyes closed. This was going to get pretty serious, and he didn’t really want to lay down for it. “I can’t just forget that that happened. Either of those things. They changed who I am, permanently. And I can’t ever be exactly the person I might’ve been without them? But I’m not angry, and I’m sick and tired of pining. So, yes. And yes.” He opened his eyes, and Kyle’s caught them. “I want to try this. With you. And I don’t know if you’re right, if we fit together that way, but I’m willing to give this, to give us, a shot.” 

That was all Kyle needed to gently pull Alex back down, wrapping him up like sunbeams on the moon’s face. 

And that was all either of them needed, for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> My tumblr is butch-lesbian-mothman if anyone wants to say hi there!
> 
> -Rennie


End file.
